What You Need to Know About Protecting Your Digital Assets

Millie Baumbusch, Putnam Smith, Elizabeth Faist, Jim Dougherty, Craig Frankel

On this week’s episode of “Wealth Matters”, hosts Millie Baumbusch and Craig Frankel discuss “What You Need to Know About Protecting Your Digital Assets”. Guests include Jim Dougherty, Technology Services Director at Bennett Thrasher LLP; Elizabeth Faist, Associate at Sutherland LLP; and Putnam Smith, Attorney at Lipscomb, Johnson, Sleister, Dailey & Smith LLP.

Jim Doughtery/Bennett Thrasher

Jim Dougherty is a Director in the Technology Services Department at Bennett Thrasher. He has ten years of industry experience and a commitment to customer service. Jim has streamlined internal operations, designed and built networks for small to medium sized businesses and provides outsourced CIO Services.

Prior to joining Bennett Thrasher, Jim was the Chief Operating Officer for Graves Technology Group, LLC. Jim joined Graves Technology in 2010 and focused on streamlining process and procedures for day-to-day activities. He got his start at an L.A. based IT Service Company providing technical support and project management.

Jim graduated from Loyola-Marymount University with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, with an emphasis in Information Technology. He views IT as a tool for businesses to leverage and design network plans around not only their day-to-day operations, but also their goal for growth in the future.

Elizabeth Faist/Sutherland LLP

Elizabeth Faist of Sutherland LLP practices tax law, primarily serving clients in the areas of trusts, estates, and the taxation of tax-exempt organizations. She manages a variety of matters, including gift and generation-skipping transfer tax issues, preparation of estate-planning documents, administration of estates, IRS tax disputes, and tax advice regarding private foundations and public charities. Elizabeth also counsels clients on tax and succession planning for their businesses. Additionally, she provides guidance on how to most efficiently safeguard assets during multi-generational wealth transfers, incorporating insurance planning and charitable giving programs as appropriate.

Prior to joining Sutherland, Elizabeth practiced at a law firm in Sarasota, Florida where she drafted estate plans, prepared federal and state filings for tax-exempt organizations and administered estates and trusts. Elizabeth provided research assistance to Professor Patricia E. Dilley during the LL.M. program, and, while in law school, she served as a judicial extern for the United States Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida.

Putnam Smith/Lipscomb, Johnson, Sleister, Dailey & Smith, LLP

Attorney Putnam C. Smith represents Main Street business owners and executives, professionals of all types and local, regional and national real estate investors, developers and operators, concentrating on business and commercial real estate transactions and tax and estate planning. Common transactions include start-ups, acquisitions and sales of closely held business, tax-free mergers and reorganizations, asset purchases, leveraged buyouts and joint ventures and partnerships in a wide range of industries.

He has practiced corporate law in Atlanta and the surrounding metropolitan area since 1988, initially with Nall & Miller, LLP and later with Robert W. Fisher, P.C., a tax boutique that was instrumental in the creation of Nextel and a number of international ventures in the telecommunications industry before disbanding in 1994. Before attending law school, he incorporated Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign and worked as a legal assistant with other leading Atlanta law firms, including King & Spalding, LLP and Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP, gaining invaluable experience with public corporations and investment banks.

During his tenure with Lipscomb, Johnson, Sleister, Dailey & Smith, LLP, Mr. Smith has handled private equity investments in shopping centers and industrial and commercial property in several southeastern states, land assemblages requiring services ranging from quiet title actions to road closures and a $116 million buyout to resolve a shareholder’s dispute involving a closely held technology business.

About Gaslowitz Frankel:

Gaslowitz Frankel is an experienced trial practice firm specializing in all aspects of complex fiduciary litigation throughout Georgia and the Southeast. With a focus on representing individuals, companies, banks, and fiduciaries in dispute involving wills, estates, trusts, guardianships, businesses, and securities law, their experienced and highly qualified litigation attorneys have tremendous credentials and a proven history of success.